Russian court overturns Beketov defamation conviction

New York, December
10, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists is relieved that the Khimki City
Court has overturned the defamation conviction of editor Mikhail
Beketov, a verdict that had been condemned in Russia and abroad.

Beketov had been found guilty last month of slandering
Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko in a 2007 television interview. In the
interview, the journalist said his car had been set on fire and that the mayor was
responsible. Beketov, whose paper, Khimkinskaya
Pravda, had opposed a highway project backed by the mayor, was severely
injured in a brutal attack a year later.

Unknown assailants attacked Beketov in the front yard of
his home in 2008 and left him for dead in the November cold. The attackers
broke Beketov's legs, crushed his skull, and smashed his fingers. The editor underwent
a series of lifesaving surgeries, but one leg and several fingers on both hands
were amputated. He can no longer walk or speak. As the criminal investigation
into his brutal beating languished--authorities suspended the probe for a lack
of suspects--Strelchenko's defamation case against the editor moved forward.

CPJ condemned
Beketov's November 10 conviction and called on the Khimki courts to overturn it
on appeal. CPJ board member Kati Marton, who visited
Beketov in a Moscow hospital in September, sent an open letter
to Strelchenko, calling on him to "drop this unwarranted and cruel complaint." As
outrage at the injustice grew, Russia's top investigator, Aleksandr
Bastrykin, ordered the assault
investigation be reopened.

The Russian legal system took another step toward justice
today, when Khimki City Court Judge Neonila Zepalova ruled that there was insufficient
evidence to convict Beketov on criminal defamation charges. A journalist and
environmental campaigner, Beketov
had fought the Strelchenko administration's plans to build a highway that could
destroy a Khimki forest. He also criticized Strelchenko for nepotism and
corruption on the pages of Khimkinskaya
Pravda.